Which Upcoming Shows Look Good?? The New Critics Choice Television Awards Anoints Its Very Own Super Eight!!

The Broadcast Television Journalists Association – comprised of 62 TV, radio and Internet writers covering TV – have picked the eight new series to which they’re most looking forward.

Those favored upcoming series are:

* “Alcatraz,” Fox’s new Sam Neill time-travel show that reunites a lot of “Lost” personnel, including producer J.J. Abrams (“Star Trek,” “Super 8”), writer Elizabeth Sarnoff (“Deadwood”) and actor Jorge Garcia. The pilot on this one is very strong.

* “Apartment 23,” ABC’s sitcom from “American Dad!” writers David Hemingson and Nahnatchka Khan about a New York party girl (Krysten Ritter of “Breaking Bad”) and her small-town roomie (Dreama Walker from “The Good Wife”).

* “Awake,” NBC’s trippy tale from Kyle Killen (“Lone Star,” “The Beaver”) about a cop ("Brotherhood's" always great Jason Isaacs) simultaneously living in two realities. The pilot is excellent, evoking everything from “Inception” and “The Matrix” to “Life on Mars” and “Journeyman.”

* “New Girl,” Fox’s Zooey Deschanel sitcom from Elizabeth Meriwether (“Childrens Hospital,” “No Strings Attached”) about an elementary school teacher rooming with three fellows. The pilot on this one was my favorite among the new comedies, funny and unusually charming in a big-screen kind of way.

* “Smash,” NBC’s very “Glee”-ish drama from Spielberg and Theresa Rebeck (“Law & Order CI,” “Canterbury’s Law”) about New York producers, songwriters, actors and the like mounting a musical about Marilyn Monroe. “American Idol” loser Katherine McPhee (“Community”) is hot as hell as the singer who wants the lead, and the pilot ends with a show stopper from ace composer Marc Shaiman (“Bigger, Longer and Uncut”).

Though I'm eager to see and hopeful it's a solid show, 18 years on it will unlikely be a greater dinosaur tale than Jurassic Park. So I guess I might end up watching that weekly.
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TV misses Jack Bauer.

I don't know too much about it myself, but they say that they think it's going to be a quality show, but apparently there is some nervousness on set that it might not be 'mass audience friendly' enough. Wait and see I guess.
Anyway I'll be checking out Person of Interest, Alcatraz, Awake (which I have also heard good word on), Terra Nova, Falling Skies, The River, Grimm, and maybe Ringer. Though I fully expect at least half of those will get their throats cut in their first half season orders, as the ratings race is just brutal these days, and network tv hasn't caught on to the fact that the old standards no longer apply, or, at the very least, aren't the only factor that needs to be applied when considering what shows are, or could be, a success.

Like Lone Star -- which had an amazing pilot but basically a premise you couldn't make a show out of -- I like the Awake trailer but don't know how long I'm gonna remain interested if that's a conceit we're gonna have to live with year after year....two realities. Hopefully there's a twist or reveal in the first season that pushes it to something more that that.

...they change their own decades-own formula of waiting until May to renew shows. Come on, we all know the ratings. Flip a coin on the bubble shows early. Because the thing of it is, you might get more people to watch a show and commit to a show if they know that they will not be left hanging.
I DVR most new shows but only actually watch a few when the season starts because I don't want to commit to a loser. Underperforming shows that are bound to get cancelled get deleted from my DVR and I start watching the rest. Because I'm sick of investing in a show, it ends the season with a cliffhanger, unresolved, is cancelled, and I wasted my time. Networks should make the call early and let the shows wrap up, turning them essentially into a "miniseries".
AND...if viewers KNOW that they will get closure, more people would actually be apt to view them in the first place. Hence the need to cancel/wrap-up might be moot.
But, no. Instead of investing with shows and their audience, networks just want to do the shotgun approach and see what sticks, then slam a dozen cheap reality shows on the air instead when they fail. Morons.

...until the scene where he walks into a room of armed men and shots everyone in the knee.
All the hour longs seem too "hook" based for my taste, Falling Skies may be the exception. i like my dramas to focus on developing interesting characters, these ones seem more aimed at developing interesting premises, an angle which has its audience obviously, just not the kind of stuff that draws me in.
Smash looks too Glee-ish to me, especially when she "wowed" everyone on her Marilyn Monroe audition by singing a pedestrian pop song, is that really what the were looking for to embody Marilyn? At least its not abusing the auto tune like Glee does, but it looks like that show depends on how charming you find McPhee, from the trailer at least I didn't find her terribly winning (admittedly short sample to judge by).
On the other side of that Zooey is thoroughly winning, so I'll have to give New Girl a chance even though it the promo doesn't make it look terribly special (I thought Modern Family looked like an uninspired family sitcom too before I gave it a chance, so maybe ABC just isn't great at putting these things together).

AWAKE - Looks really decent, probably would have made a good movie. But you KNOW that the writers don't have the first fucking clue about where this series will go. And NBC are lying cunt bags.
So even though it looks really promising, I will not watch this. NBC can blow liquid shit up their own asses.
Shows that feature two realities, whether it's Stargate, Amy's Choice, or whatever, can only resolve themselves in one of three ways : Either one is true, or they're both true, or neither is true. The rules of scifi invariably say that if you can't tell the difference between the two, then they are both equally "true". And that usually means they are both false.

I really think several of the shows listed above will be cancelled. (Anything that Brannon Braga has touched, for example.)
But I'm calling it now that SMG's show will be shit-canned, and HERC will have weekly talkback discussions for it.

Here's the problem with your suggestion:
If all the people like you don't watch the early episodes, how can they assume you will eventually? They don't know you're waiting for a renewal so you can feel better about investing in the show. They assume you're not interested and the good shows get cancelled.

Just based on the ads I've seen TNT run it looks like a rehash of every Alien invasion show/movie that ever existed before... I could have sworn the laser one of the aliens uses in one of the trailers looks EXACTLY like the one used in Predators. Just doesn't seem like it's going to bring anything new to the genre

Person if Interest will be the sleeper hit. but i am concerned in that it may go the way of Sarah Connor Chronicles.
Person of Interest needs someone with marketing savvy similar to the viral marketing used in Nolan's build up to The Dark Knight. Do some viral videos on youtube to get a buzz going.

Just had to say that.
Since critics' and mainstream audiences' tastes often don't mesh, the more interesting question is which one of the newcomers will get pulled, and how soon. Fox, of course, has the itchiest trigger finger, probably followed by NBC and ABC.
Ringer, no matter how it does, will likely see the whole season, since the CW doesn't have the luxury of backups it can't afford to insert into the schedule. They can't run Tyra's model show all the time.

...4400 and the Event had a yard sale and some douche came up and bought an antique for his yuppie apartment. Just too rehashed with forced "mystery". If I had to guess, I'd say it's Philadelphia Experiment related, but truthfully I don't care enough to follow through.

...4400 and The Event had a yard sale. People go missing, it's all a big mystery, fans drop off week by week, no one cares, it's canceled. And my guess is Philadelphia Experiment related, but can't muster enough interest to follow through on that.

The rest I have no interest in ...
I'll watch (almost) anything Jason Isaacs is in, but considering LoneStar was canned after 2 episodes and that had some really great acting and an interesting premise for a series, I won't hold my breath.
I agree with the TBer above wondering how they're going to sustain the premise for entire season.
I think they'll be better off using a shorter season, maybe 6-8 eps - it worked fine for Life on Mars and Ashes to Ashes.
I'll be rooting for Awake come launch

Me neither. Calling it a "mini-series" and "by the end of summer, all will be known". Not only was "all" not known, but the last episode gave us the extra question of "why was Robert Picardo wearing the Lucius Malfoy wig?".

ya, sometimes they may actually like something that looks awesome, like most of these shows, but modern day people who watch tv suck and wont watch awesome challenging shows like these, they want big bang theory and cop doctor lawyer shows that drone on every week and suck

and watch it in real time. Then save it to an archiving server. Then store that server in a nuclear fall-out shelter. Then make his wife dress up like Zooey and have her act out the parts while he films it.
But it sounds like he's over Zooey and has moved on to Ryan Reynolds.

So Ad-Rock had something to do with "Once Upon a Time"? Neat. I'm looking forward to Alcatraz, New Girl, Dinosaur Show and Alien Show. They all look good although New Girl looks kinda like Dharma and Greg with three Gregs.

I feel like there's gonna have to be a LOT of filler to sustain that for even one season, let alone more.
Very cool concept though, and Jason Isaacs is a CRIMINALLY underrated actor. extremely versatile.

200 people disapeared out of thin air and they mannaged to cover that shit up? How fucking stupid is that? They could had just invented some fictional prision for that to at least make some sort of in-story plausability. But a REAL KNOWN PRISION? One so famous that even prople outside the USa have heard of it and know why it was so famous for? GIVE ME A FUCKING BREAK!
How stupid does this JJ Abrams assclown think we are? Very fuckign stupid, that's how he thinks.
Fuck off, Abrams.

Television sucks these days. No reason to get involved in shows because they all get canceled. The only shows that survive are reality bull shit shows and stupid as fuck sitcoms like Two and a Half Men. A lot of these shows look good but won't last. I probably won't check out a single one until it gets past a second season and then I'll catch up on DVD. I've burned too many times by these TV suit shit heads. They also need to change how they look at ratings. Writing off DVD sales and DVR recordings because there are no commercials is bull shit. The Nielson rating thing is bull shit too. Calculated fake ass numbers. It's simple let a show have more than two seasons and it will gain fans.

but Tim Allen's new sitcom will rule next year. A sitcom about a father who is not a bumbling idiot? Golden!
It's only taken TV 50 years to produce a show like this again, and there are a lot of men who get tired of watching every "Homer Simpson" on TV.

I've seen the first two hours. I saw a screening with Noah Wiley in attendance for Q & A. He seems legitimately excited about the series and its potential as well as the pedigree of the show. It's got my attention to watch some more.